the truth is always subversive

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All too often, the phrase "corporate free press" is something of an oxymoron. Whether to maximise sales, to attract advertisers, or simply to promote the interests of their wealthy owners, the mass media open strange, self-serving and grossly distorted windows onto the world.

This website is another window. Here you'll find documentaries, lectures and interviews following a different editorial line.

To mark the occasion of the latest step in the disintegration of the former Yugoslavia, I bring you a 2006 interview (36 mins) with Noam Chomsky on Serbian TV.

As it becomes less and less possible to hold up the invasion of Afghanistan as the good war that justifies our imperialism, tame media pundits can still look back fondly upon the 1999 bombing of Serbia as a truly humanitarian intervention. In fact that war fits the pattern set by its successors: a propaganda fairy story of saving savages from each other to disguise the violent projection of Western power.

To many in both politics and business, the triumph of the self is the ultimate expression of democracy, where power has finally moved to the people. Certainly the people may feel they are in charge, but are they really? The Century of the Self tells the untold and sometimes controversial story of the growth of the mass-consumer society in Britain and the United States. How was the all-consuming self created, by whom, and in whose interests?

How to win a battle against terrorism and lose the war of ideas. Children shoot soldiers at point-blank range. Women plant bombs in cafes. Soon the entire Arab population builds to a mad fervor. Sound familiar? The French have a plan. It succeeds tactically, but fails strategically. To understand why, come to a rare showing of this film.

… which, strangely enough, brings me to Iraq.

Hidden Facts: a message from the Iraqi Resistance

Purporting to be the work of the Resistance group 1920 Revolution Brigades, this is an insightful and compelling video (16 mins) with surprisingly high production values. I can’t guarantee it’s real, but I can guarantee it’s worth watching.

Disgusted with the coverage of the war in American journalism, Dahr Jamail saved up and took his camera and his laptop to occupied Iraq. His unembedded dispatches are now recognised as crucial sources of information from the warzone – and are almost unique in their independence from occupying forces.

The (ahem) ‘documentary’ The Great Global Warming Swindle caused a great deal of fuss when it was broadcast. Polluters, various forms of industry and others looking just to have a clear conscience were eager to jump on the ‘evidence’ as proof we should all just carry on as normal.

One strange thing about it is how easily the conspiracy theorists jumped on the bandwagon for this documentary.

However, this excellent piece (43 mins) by Chris Merchant from the University of Edinburgh explains why you shouldn’t take it so seriously.

In their latest documentary (45 mins), CBC’s The Fifth Estate examines the propaganda drive that led to the invasion of Iraq.

While it’s comforting to think that most of us have learned a certain healthy skepticism since 2003, it’s worth re-examining the path to war in Iraq to prevent us from making the same mistakes again.

Fox Attacks… Iran

Robert Greenwald follows up on his Outfoxed film with this short (4 mins). It’s a shame to single out for criticism the worst of a bad bunch, as it lets the others get away with so much, but this still a chilling look at history repeating.